American Dirt author Jeanine Cummins: ‘I didn’t need to justify my right to write that book’

Five years after being vilified for exploiting the migrant experience in her bestseller, the author reveals how the backlash inspired her latest novel

‘My legal work sows the seeds of my stories’: International Booker prize winner Banu Mushtaq

The author and activist, who was subject to a fatwa in 2000, has won the prestigious prize for translated fiction with her translator Deepa Bhasthi for her collection of short stories about the lives of Muslim women. They explain why Heart Lamp’s themes ‘are universal’

‘I read him my seven-page sex scene’: Gay Bar author Jeremy Atherton Lin’s transatlantic love story

When the writer’s partner overstayed his US visa, the couple were forced to live ‘underground’. He talks about their fear of deportation – and the secret to a happy open relationship

‘We shouldn’t blow this one’: why Democrats have a chance to retake the working class

Joan C Williams explains how to win over voters – and shares a quiz that tells you whether you’re elite or not

‘I dropped a C-bomb into Tolstoy’: one man’s quest to translate War and Peace into ‘bogan Australian’

Melbourne man Ander Louis has translated hundreds of pages of the 19th century classic line by line to include Ford Falcons, wankers and drongos

Robert Macfarlane: ‘Sometimes I felt as if the river was writing me’

The writer and poet on reimagining rivers as living beings, the ecological crisis near and far and why copyright laws should protect nature

‘I had a chance to pass my mum’s story on’: Kazuo Ishiguro on growing up in shadow of the Nagasaki bomb

The film version of A Pale View of Hills, the Nobel-winner’s tale of loss, exile and a pregnant radioactive bride, is about to premiere at Cannes. The writer explains why this story is so personal to him

‘Buddhism and Björk help me handle fame’: novelist Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous made him a literary superstar. Now the Vietnamese American author is exploring his working-class roots in an ambitious follow‑up

Sarah Wilson: ‘Worrying about your gut biome when the world’s burning is too indulgent’

From I Quit Sugar to the ‘shittification of life’, writer and journalist Sarah Wilson on breaking up with hope and finding happiness in collapse theory

Simon Armitage: ‘Our pace of life is unhelpful to nature, it’s burning it up’

Exclusive: Poet laureate says new book, inspired by wildlife at Cornish garden, is a plea for humans to slow down and reflect

A child on thin ice: EA Hanks on life with her abusive mother – and world-famous father

One half of the author’s early life was spent with a mother who struggled with addiction, her mental health and caring responsibilities. The other was with her father Tom on film sets and in a house full of love and structure. She discusses her road trip back into her complicated past

‘Music is never fixed in me’ … cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason on surviving a ‘volcano of racism’

A remark about Rule, Britannia! led to uproar but the star musician is concentrating on the joy and power of classical music. As his first book is published, he talks to Charlotte Higgins• Read an exclusive extract from Kanneh-Mason’s new book

‘You have to be taken inside Poirot’s brain’: Ken Ludwig on the secret to adapting Agatha Christie

The US playwright and anglophile behind much-revived comedies has a flair for crime and is following a crowd-pleasing Murder on the Orient Express with Death on the Nile

Writer Saba Sams: ‘I wanted it to be sexy and really messy’

The Send Nudes author, one of Granta’s pick of the best young British novelists, on young motherhood, feminism and why we need to break the rules around love

‘Beyoncé and Solange tell me off all the time’: Tina Knowles on raising superstars, surviving cancer and growing up under segregation

Pop’s top matriarch is finally getting the credit she’s due. She talks about her shock diagnosis, conspiracy theories about her family, and the Instagram posts that get her in trouble with her kids